This invention relates to combines for harvesting grain. More particularly, this invention relates to conveyors for a feeder house of a combine.
Heretofore, combines have been rendered useless and fields of grain have gone unharvested due to a failure of a conveyor in a feeder house of a combine to adequately convey fresh cut unthreshed grain from a cutter bar and auger of a platform up into a threshing cylinder of the combine. It is a desideratum in the art of combine feeder house conveyors that the fresh cut unthreshed grain be taken from the auger on the platform and delivered to the threshing cylinder as the grain is being cut by the cutter bar. A failure of the conveyor to adequately perform this function will operate to slow or stop the operation of the combine altogether. Moreover, transverse slat means carried by a conveyor belt or chain have performed the function of taking the grain from the auger and dragging the grain along a feeder house bottom pan to the threshing cylinder in the combine. More succinctly, the slat means of this invention strips the grain from the auger by the aforementioned fingers and finger action and then literally hands the grain up into the threshing cylinder from the conveyor means by an underhanded scooping or pitching action of the fingers of the slats. Any failure or impairment of the conveyor in the feeder house to adequately perform this function results in a failure or slowing of the entire threshing operation. Particular difficulty has been encountered in the failure of the conveyor to properly transfer the grain to the cylinder with a resulting pileup and backup of the grain in front of the cylinder and a feedback of the grain over the top of the conveyor back to the auger. Additionally, the desired stripping of the grain from the auger onto the conveyor and the scooping or pitching of the grain into the threshing cylinder has not been satisfactorily obtainable with prior art slat configurations and this disadvantage lends itself to further dissatisfaction with the prior art conveyors that utilize slats.